Meet me at Foxwoods (well, meet me at MGM Grand at Foxwoods)!

Friday night, Miss Alison Hay and I ventured to MGM Grand at Foxwoods to see John Legend. She got me a ticket for Christmas, and we were both super excited for the concert. I had never been to Foxwoods, nor a casino for that matter...well, except for the casinos on a cruise ship, so I was not really sure what to expect. We got off 95 in Connecticut and drove down this two lane stretch of road for what seemed like forever, when we turned a corner and suddenly, this giant green and white monstrosity appears between the trees. Seriously, we just followed the bend in the road and it was like BAM! HOTEL! It was a little difficult for me to follow the road, I was gawking at the giant building in front of me that seemed to come out of nowhere, I'm pretty sure my mouth was open the last mile or so we drove to the casino. After passing not two but THREE separate entrances to Foxwoods, we were directed to the entrance to MGM Grand at Foxwoods, where the show was and where we having dinner. We pulled into the massive parking garage and were met with the gleaming MGM Grand hotel (apologies for the sub-par pics, they're from by blackberry) We walked into the lobby, and it was totally not what I was expecting a casino lobby to be like - much more subdued and "normal", minus all the bells and whistles....until we actually got into the hotel, and we were, naturally, met with the lights, bells and whistles that I had been expecting. It was this giant open area with slot machines, table games, and copious amounts of cigarette smoke- totally forgot what it was like when you can smoke IN a building. We wandered around MGM Grand for a while, checked out some of the stores, and picked up the tickets for the show. Since we had some time to kill, we took the escalators over to Foxwoods to check that out.

Getting of the escalator I was met with complete and total sensory overload. The meshing of styles, these fake street front facades (which reminded me of Main Street U.S.A. in the Magic Kingdom, only cheaper-looking), bells and whistles from slot machines, Chihuly glass, and 5 star restaurants, was amazing. I've never been to Vegas, I've always wanted to go, but never having been to a casino before, I'm glad that I went to a place like Foxwoods to ease into the casino scene...had I jumped right in and gone to Vegas, I probably would have hated it. After wandering around and checking out some of the stuff Foxwoods had to offer (including a Bingo Hall that can seat up to 5,000 people, with a $15 buy-in) we headed back to MGM Grand to check out some of the games.

I sat down at a slot machine, and put in $5. After about 10 minutes of pulling the lever and not really understanding how you won, I had been exactly where I started and was starting to get bored, so I took my "winnings" and cashed out. I got a printed receipt for $5...huzzah! Alison wanted to play roulette, so we checked out one of the tables. She put some money down, and on the first spin of the wheel, she won $135! Hooray for her! After playing again and losing, she decided to walk away, and besides, it was time for dinner, so she cashed in her winnings as well, much more respectable than my $5 earnings.

We had dinner at Shrine, which was a pretty cool place. I had some great sushi. I was hoping to do some celeb citing or at least see someone doing bumps in the bathroom, but no such luck. The atmosphere was great though, this asian-fusion kinda deal. It's apparently THE place to be on the weekends.

Estelle was supposed to open for John Legend, but at about 8:55 there was an announcement made that "due to a scheduling conflict, Estelle will not be appearing tonight." In her place? One of his back up singers, Vaughn something. His set was meh, thank god it was only about 15 minutes...I mean, props for him for trying, but, to give you a sample of his songs, one of the choruses was "and we're humpin, we're humpin, we're humpin and we're bumpin in the club"...once the painful opening was over, JL (that's John Legend), came out and played a great hour and a half set. Vaughn was thankfully demoted back to his back-up singer position, and all was right with the world. He closed the show with a sick rendition of "Green Light", and his encore was "Ordinary People" and my current new favorite song "If You're Out There".

After the show, we were walking out of the theater, and it was crazy, everyone pulled out their cigarettes and started lighting up, because, you know, two hours with out smoking is torture...sorry to all the smokers out there, but seriously. So, in the end, I want to go back, maybe stay over this time (and not have to pay the ridiculous amount of $400 a night), and maybe be a little more adventurous than $5 in a slot machine.

Also, JL and I are already homies, based on his January 28th blog entry, "Speaking of hotness... I just saw "Slumdog Millionaire" on my day off yesterday. All I can say is Wow. It was one of my favorite movies in a long time. Please go see it. It's really great work." Holler, JL knows whats up!

And finally, speaking of Slumdog, it swept the BAFTA's last night, winning seven awards including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound, Score and Editing. The Slumdog train continues to roll along, and many Oscar bloggers are forecasting it win at least seven of its ten nominations...2 more weeks left til the big dance...